by Beverly Long
He parked and showed his badge to get quickly past the hospital security. He asked for the charge nurse and when he told her why he was there, it didn’t take him long to realize that everything wasn’t fine, that everything might not be fine.
From far away, he heard her say things like blood clot, possible stroke, in surgery at this very minute. He let her lead him to the other side of the hospital, to a mostly empty waiting room. Claire was the only person there.
“You didn’t need to come,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and holding her gently, being careful of her sore shoulder.
“I know how much he means to you, Sam. I didn’t want you to be alone.”
He took the comfort that she so freely gave. When his legs finally felt like they might just keep him up, he pulled back far enough that he could see her face.
“I’m so glad it wasn’t you, Sam. I’m so glad you weren’t hurt.”
“I was scared, Claire.” He pulled her close and rested his chin on the top of her head. “I was so scared. I almost shot that girl.”
She wrapped her free arm around him like before and held him tight. “What happened?” she asked, her words muffled by his chest.
“She was the inside guy. She had a cell phone and she’d called her friends and told them to come, that the store was almost empty. I’m not even sure those boys knew she had a gun. They just froze when she shot Cruz. I really don’t think they were planning on shooting anybody.”
A woman, in her early forties, walked into the room. She had on green scrubs and her hair was pulled back and covered by a hairnet. “I’m Dr. Janssen. I understand you’re his partner. We got the bleeding stopped, replaced two pints of blood and got him stabilized. He’s in the recovery room now. I’ll be back in a few minutes and take you to see him.”
The woman, her rubber-soled clogs softly clumping, left the room. Sam sat in his chair and tried to remember all the bargains he’d made with God when he’d seen Cruz bleeding out on the coffee-shop floor. He intended to keep every one of them.
“He might not be happy that I called Meg.”
“That was the right thing to do,” she said. “I would want somebody to call me.”
That would be horrible. My God, he’d been just three years younger than she was now when he’d walked in and practically stumbled over Tessa’s dead body.
The doctor returned. “Mrs. Vernelli can come, too,” she said.
Mrs. Vernelli.
Tessa had spent hours writing that on all her notebooks. When he’d introduced her to friends as Tessa Fontaine, she’d put out her hand, flashed a smile and said, “You can call me Mrs. Vernelli.”
She was crazy about being Mrs. Vernelli.
They’d been kids playing grown-up games.
Now he was a grown-up acting like a kid. He’d met Claire, seen something he wanted and regardless of the consequences, had decided he had to have it.
She was a young, beautiful woman. She’d been protected her whole life, sheltered, almost shut away. She’d been lonely.
This was her time to soar. The sky was the limit for Claire Fontaine.
Unless she was tied to some idiot who could get shot at most any day. Then she’d just be a young widow. Alone and lonely again.
“She’s not Mrs. Vernelli,” he said, his voice hard.
Claire’s head snapped up.
He looked at her and prayed that he’d have the courage to keep going. “You were right, Claire. It was a crazy idea to pretend we were getting married, to even think about it. Call your parents. Make sure they understand that it’s over.”
“You want it to be over?” she asked, her voice choked with tension. “Everything?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what the hell I was doing.”
“Is it because of Tessa?” she asked.
He nodded. It was better for her to think so. Better for her to believe he was trapped by the past rather than afraid of the future. Maybe this was the one last thing he could do for her.
With a careless swipe of her hand, she brushed a tear off her cheek. “I’m sorry she died, Sam. I loved her, too. I’d like to think that she would have wanted us both to be happy.”
“Detective Vernelli?” The doctor still stood in the doorway, looking very impatient.
Claire glanced from him to the doctor, then back to him. Her eyes were bright with tears. “He’s right. I’m not Mrs. Vernelli.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Goodbye, Sam.”
* * *
CRUZ WAS FLAT ON HIS BACK in a bed, with an IV pumping something into his arm. He was pale and his mouth was a tight line. His eyes were closed.
Sam closed his own eyes and said a quick prayer. Then he opened them and gave a low whistle. “Some people will do anything for a couple weeks off,” he said.
Cruz opened his eyes and wet his dry lips with his tongue. “It would have been a better plan if they’d shot you and I took off time to take care of you.”
Sam sat down in the lone chair, extended his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “Doc says you’re going to be fine.”
Cruz nodded. “She said if I work like hell in physical therapy, I should get full use back.”
Sam let out the breath that he must have been holding. “I assume you gave your statement.”
“Yeah. Right after I got here. I was fine for the first hour and then all hell broke loose.”
“What? You weren’t getting enough attention?”
“I’ve had my fair share now,” Cruz said, his voice sounding strained. Sam knew he shouldn’t stay much longer. His friend would need sleep.
“I called Meg,” Sam said. “I hope you’re not mad. She’s coming.”
“I don’t want her pity,” Cruz said.
“Give her a chance,” Sam cautioned. “She—”
He stopped when a nurse entered the room. She smiled, walked over and checked the machines that were beeping and whirling and left, her clogs making the same soft noise he’d heard earlier when the doctor had walked through the waiting area. She had on a similar purple-and-green smock.
She was a walking color wheel. Whatever happened to the white uniform, little white hat and ugly white shoes?
Sam stood up, leaned over Cruz’s bed to tell his friend goodbye and stopped.
No white shoes. Green clogs. Just like the green clogs that had been under Claire’s kitchen table the day Sandy Bird had stormed her way in.
Oh, damn.
“Sam?” Cruz said, his voice full of fear. “What the hell’s wrong? Am I bleeding somewhere?”
“No. No.” Sam rushed to assure his friend. “Cruz, I think I missed something. Something big. That nurse that was just in here. She had on green clogs. The doctor did, too. Nadine, Claire’s roommate, works at this hospital and she wears them.”
“Maybe it’s the pain medication, Sam, but you’re not making a lot of sense.”
“The day of the shooting, I moved Nadine and Claire into the kitchen. Claire almost tripped over the shoes, so I kicked them under the table. And now, I remember that when I got behind Nadine and I told her to put her gun down, her feet were bare. She laid her gun next to bare feet.”
“So? She’d taken her shoes off.”
“No. She said she’d been leaving for work when Sandy Bird, a stranger, had surprised her in the hall. That she pushed her way into the apartment. Claire heard them arguing in the living room. I don’t think Nadine took the time to take her shoes off and put them in the kitchen when she’s got a stranger waving a gun in her face.”
“She invited her in,” Cruz said, coming to the logical conclusion. “She knew her.”
Sam rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know how. I thought we’d looked at every possible connection. All I know is that her shoes were under the table.”
Cruz lifted his head up off the bed, just inches. “Call The Weasel. If they were there, he’d have gotten a picture of them.”
Sam hit the door running. “I’ll be back,” he sai
d over his shoulder.
* * *
“I NEED THE WEASEL,” he said, when the department phone was answered.
In less than a minute, the man was on the phone. “What’s up, Vernelli?”
“About three weeks ago you worked the scene at 810 Maple Street. Head shot, hardwood floor.”
“Ah, yes, I remember it well. Did they ever get that wall clean?”
“I need to see the pictures. All of them. I’m on my way in. I’ll meet you at my desk in fifteen minutes.”
The Weasel was waiting for him when he got there. It took Sam less than three minutes to find the photo he wanted. There they were. Ugly green clogs. Under Claire and Nadine’s table.
It was starting to make sense. After Claire had surprised the two of them, things had turned bad quickly. Bird hadn’t been a stranger. She hadn’t come for Claire. She’d come to see Nadine.
Sam picked up his cell phone and started to dial Claire’s cell number. He stopped, suddenly shaking so hard that he couldn’t press the small buttons on his phone. The call had come into Claire’s home telephone.
The caller was somebody who knew that new number.
Like maybe the roommate who’d been there when the telephone line got activated. It had been a man who called. But something told him that Nadine Myer was in this up to her eyebrows. She’d grown up with Claire, their families knew each other. She would know about Tessa.
He and Nadine were going to have a little conversation.
For the second time that day, Sam got in his car and drove like a crazy man to Melrey Hospital. He went to the front desk this time and asked to see the administrator in charge.
In less than two minutes, a middle-aged woman, wearing a white lab coat and the same awful shoes walked toward him. “Detective, I’m Margaret Moore, Director of Nursing. May I help you?”
He pulled out a card. “I’m investigating a potential homicide. I need to speak with one of your employees. Ms. Nadine Myer. I’m going to need someplace private.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you. Nadine Myer hasn’t worked here for six weeks. Trust me on this, Detective. Nadine won’t ever work at this hospital again.”
Sam started to get a bad feeling. “Why not?” he asked.
Margaret Moore looked around. The lobby was full of people. “Follow me,” she said.
Chapter Nineteen
Claire knew she should go back to work but she just couldn’t bear it. Instead, she went to her apartment. She could barely put one foot in front of the other as she made her way up the three flights of stairs. She was grateful that Nadine was working. She couldn’t face anybody.
She went to her bedroom and sat on her bed. She’d have to leave Chicago after all. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about running into Sam or Sam stopping by to check on her ever again.
She wouldn’t go back to Nebraska. Maybe New York. There were advertising agencies there. Maybe they’d be willing to take a chance on somebody new. At least she had the award that she could add to her résumé. And some seed money. The check was really going to come in handy now. She knew rent would be even more in New York than it had been in Chicago and she wouldn’t have anyone to share the expense with. She couldn’t expect Nadine to leave a good job in Chicago just because Claire’s life was falling apart.
She would need to give notice to Alexander and Pope. She should do that today. She got up, opened her desk drawer and searched for her nice lined paper. She found the paper but realized that something else was missing.
Her passport.
She always kept it in this drawer. She’d seen it in there just a few weeks ago. She slipped off the sling so that she’d have use of both arms. She yanked out the drawer and dumped the contents on her bed. She rummaged through the items and came up empty.
They’d been robbed again.
How was that possible? Feeling ill, she walked into Nadine’s room to see what might have been taken from there. Two minutes later, she tried to open Nadine’s closet doors but realized the folding door was caught on a suitcase. She pulled the bag out with some difficulty because it was heavy. What the heck?
She opened it. It was jammed full of clothes, almost everything Nadine had in her closet. Lying on top was a short, dark-haired wig, styled almost exactly how Claire wore her hair.
She started to feel sick. The woman who’d pawned the stolen items had had short, dark hair.
And she realized there never had been a robbery. It had been Nadine.
She was sitting there on the floor, holding the horrible wig in her hands, when she heard her front door open. She threw the wig back into the suitcase, closed it, pushed it back in the closet and ran for the door.
But Nadine was already inside.
She looked at Claire and then past her into Claire’s bedroom where the contents of her middle drawer still lay spread across her bed. Before Claire could even move, Nadine pulled her gun out of her purse.
“I didn’t expect you to be here until tonight,” Nadine said, her tone angry. “But I guess I can get an early start.”
“Start?” Claire asked.
“I’m leaving the country. That wig and your passport are going to come in handy.”
“Nadine,” Claire said, trying not to choke on the tears that threatened. She was so scared. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can talk about it.” She needed to buy enough time to get the gun away from Nadine.
“Talk?” Nadine shook her head. “I’m in this so deep and that damn boyfriend of yours isn’t going to ever let it go. I don’t have time to talk.” She waved her gun around and Claire’s stomach jumped. Nadine walked over and dumped the contents of Claire’s purse onto the bed. The award check floated out.
“Excellent,” Nadine said. “This is what I was hanging around for. Now, come on. We’re getting out of here. Move or I’ll shoot you now.”
Claire knew she wasn’t kidding. Nadine had already killed once and she would do it again.
“Where are we going?” Claire asked.
“Shut up,” Nadine said. “Get my suitcase. Come on, move.”
Claire picked up the heavy case and set it by the door. “No, you carry it,” Nadine said. “We’re going to walk out that door and down to my car.”
Claire opened the door just as the phone in the apartment started ringing. Nadine pulled the door shut behind them. Their neighbor was just coming back from somewhere. The woman turned and looked at them, then at the suitcase.
“You two girls going on a trip?” she asked.
Claire heard Nadine suck in a breath. “Yes,” Claire said, forcing herself to sound normal. “To Saint Louis. Big game between the Cubs and the Cards.”
* * *
MARGARET MOORE LED SAM down to a small, windowless office. She cleared off a chair so that he could sit. “Nadine was discharged from our employ. She’s not welcome on the premises.”
“What did she do to get fired?”
“Theft. Narcotics. Are you familiar with fentanyl, Detective Vernelli?”
On the street pure fentanyl was a big-time favorite with addicts. “Some.”
“Well, in the operating room, it’s used a great deal. However, we realized that we were missing a fairly large quantity. As part of our investigation, we asked Ms. Myer to take a drug test. She refused and we terminated her.”
“Could it possibly have been anyone else?”
“No. Our investigation proved that it was her. We do know she had some help. Not that you may be interested, but we fired a pharmacist that same day. He admitted that he’d helped her. We’re also short significant amounts of Oxycontin. Evidently, they had some kind of relationship, although I believe it was short-lived.”
Relationship with a pharmacist. He needed to pay Fletcher Bird another visit.
But first, he needed to get Claire away from Nadine.
“Thank you,” he said. “You’ve been very helpful.”
“Detective Vernelli,” she said, stopping him, “if it helps, I t
hink she fooled a lot of people. We never had any indication that she was impaired.”
He’d worked with several functioning alcoholics and addicts, too. People got good at hiding the addiction. All he knew was that she was going to pay for giving Claire even one moment of grief. He left the office, dialing his cell phone as he walked. He slammed it shut when Claire’s cell line rang and rang until it switched over to voice mail. “Call me, Claire. Right now,” he said. He ended the call and fumbled in his wallet for the card that had her office number. He dialed it. The receptionist answered and said that Claire hadn’t been in the office for several hours.
Next, he called the landline at her apartment. It rang and rang. He squeezed the steering wheel and tried to think.
She’d been upset when she’d left the hospital. If she hadn’t gone back to work, where would she have gone? To his house? No. Shopping? He didn’t think so.
It only made sense that she’d have gone home. Maybe she was sleeping and couldn’t hear the phone? Maybe she heard it and didn’t intend to ever talk to him again?
Please, please, just be safe.
With few other options, he drove to her apartment building and ran up the three flights of stairs. He pounded on the door.
The neighbor from across the hall stuck her head out the door. “Keep it down,” she snarled. “I’m watching my shows.”
“I’m looking for Claire. Have you seen her?”
“Yeah. She left about five minutes ago. Both her and Nadine.”
“Did she say anything?”
“Yeah. Said they were going to Saint Louis to see the Cubs play.”
That didn’t make any sense. The season had been over for three weeks.
But Nadine probably didn’t know that. Claire had been trying to let someone know that there was something wrong.
Sam pulled out his cell and called his captain next. He needed help.
* * *
